This invention relates to protective clothing and in particular to clothing of a type used by motorcyclists. In this context, it is to be understood that the protective clothing also could be used by motor scooter riders and those involved in similar activities.
It is conventional for motorcyclists to wear leather clothing, which is good for abrasion resistance and for protection of the rider from the wind and other elements.
Clothing made from leather, however, is often not appropriate from a fashion, business or social point of view or may be considered inappropriate in some instances where a different style of clothing might be considered more appropriate.
Thus, leather clothing is not always appropriate for use in many environments, so that the motorcyclist has to consider having a change of clothing from when riding the motorcycle to when attending a social or business function.
It has been known to use protective shields in the manner for instance of leggings or chaps, which are either supported externally to the clothing or are secured to an external surface of the clothing.
The problem with this arrangement is again the problem that the clothing still takes the appearance of clothing intended for motorcycle riding and not for attendance at social or business functions or for general day-to-day activities.
Such external shields can however be made from materials such as polycarbonate which will provide excellent abrasion protection, but the difficulty is that they must also be comfortable to use and from a commercial point of view, shapes must be found that are appropriate for at least a reasonable range of different sizes of people who might use these.
These problems have been overcome partially by providing clothing having patches of protective material constructed or sewn into the inner-side of the garments. Such patches are disclosed in AU769691 to the present applicant filed 3 Dec. 1999. The present inventors have however realised that, to some extent, there are obvious clues (such as stitching across the fabric in areas where stitches would not otherwise be placed) that indicate that the otherwise normal garments have been modified as motorcycle protective clothing.
It would accordingly be advantageous to provide the public with a useful alternative to existing motorcyclist type clothing which will be better accepted in a business or social situation to motorcyclists and the like and yet still provide good protection.
There is a current market for this type of protection, but it still has the above-mentioned difficulties.